Character – The Neglected Criteria

The most important aspect of the person which is completely missing in the present generations is perfect character. How will you define about someone’s character or his personality? Let me clear you the narrow difference between personality and character. Personality is who we are and what we do when everybody is watching and Character is who we are and what we do when nobody is watching. We have shifted our focus from character building to personality building. It is very easy to find the personality development classes in the every corner of the city, but there is rarely a institute that teaches how to build character. Our modern education system is also focusing on employment, in other ways building a good personality. But the real education means building character. Character will automatically lead to competence. Since, there is no character building; everyone is suffering with something or the other. Today, you have to prove yourself as an honest man before the society, because everyone is a potential suspect. What kind of fearful society we are creating, where we cannot believe each other. The miseries of 21^st century are mostly associated with character less society.

 No character development is the root cause of many social problems such as corruption, poverty, terrorism, etc. Character-less persons entering politics will only exploit their position and countries resources. People are so crazy after money that they are entangled with frustration, enviousness, greedy and are disturbed. Today, even the wealthiest person is unhappy. See the youth of today, what type of qualities they are developing in their school and college life. They are trapped in the hole of intoxication (drinking, smoking, etc.), meat-eating, illicit sex and gambling. When they come out as professionals, all this will be reflected in their attitude and personality. This thing is neither good for them self nor for the society. We can save our country from the forth-coming scams, terrorist attacks and various ill-evils, if there is some attention paid on this serious issue. A most common example which can be witnessed in every household, when parents speak lie in front of their small or teenaged children’s, at times they ask their children’s to speak a lie to someone whom they don’t want to talk and then expect their children to speak truth in front of them. Children’s learn from their parent’s traits and children’s build a belief that even speaking a lie doesn’t do any harm to them.

There might be some traits of a good character, and it is not easy for one to define qualities. So, according to Bhagavad Gita (Ch-12), A perfect character must possess the following qualities: freedom from enviousness, should not be frivolous, should not be naughty, should be straight forward, should have the capability to subjugate the senses (self-controlled), should have a strong faith, try to build a loving relationship with every individual. According to me, it is the high time when think tank take some concrete steps in changing the education system or introducing something that would cater the need of character building. Time has arrived when due weightage is given to character, so that we can build a perfect society full of faith and trust and remove all the social-ills present in the society.